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Ebola Death Toll in West Africa Tops 1,200

United Nations health workers in New Kru Town, Liberia. Residents are being urged to wash their hands to help prevent the spread of the epidemic.Credit
John Moore/Getty Images

LONDON — As West African nations grappled with the worst-ever outbreak of the Ebola virus, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday that the death toll had exceeded 1,200 and announced increased efforts to forestall severe food shortages in areas isolated by quarantines.

Alarm over the disease spread to Germany when a 30-year-old woman at a state employment office was found to have a high fever, a possible symptom of Ebola, and emergency medical personnel ordered her isolated for tests.

Within hours, a statement from the Charité hospital said physicians were inclined to believe that the woman had not been infected with the Ebola virus. While she had returned from Africa 8 days ago, health authorities said, she was more likely suffering from an infectious illness of the stomach or intestine. But a blood test was being carried out to check for Ebola.

A week ago, Europe’s first known death from Ebola was recorded in Madrid when a 75-year-old Spanish priest, the Rev. Miguel Pajares, died after being evacuated from Liberia where he had been treating Ebola patients.

The latest figures from the W.H.O. offered a familiar, grim picture of the spread of Ebola, which international health specialists say has been outpacing containment efforts since its identification in West Africa in March.

The only glimmer of relief, albeit faint, came when Reuters quoted Liberia’s information minister, Lewis Brown, as saying that three African doctors treated in his country with a scarce experimental drug, ZMapp, were showing “remarkable signs of improvement.” There is no licensed cure or vaccine for Ebola, which kills at least half of those infected.

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The manufacturer of the experimental medication, Mapp Biopharmaceutical of San Diego, has already said that its limited stock of the drug, enough to treat a half-dozen people, is exhausted. The drug, which consists of antibodies that neutralize the Ebola virus, appears to have helped two American aid workers who contracted Ebola in Liberia.

Mr. Brown was also quoted in news reports as saying that 17 people being tested for Ebola who were missing from a quarantine center in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, over the weekend had been located. Some reports said they had been transferred to a specialist Ebola treatment center at John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia, but other accounts said they had checked in there themselves.

The 17 patients fled a temporary holding center when it was ransacked by looters, who took bloodstained sheets and mattresses that may carry the Ebola virus. The whereabouts of those items was not immediately clear on Tuesday.

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The disappearance of the patients raised fears that the disease might spread further in the densely packed and poverty-stricken warren of narrow, muddy alleyways in Monrovia known as West Point. Ebola is transmitted through bodily fluids.

Mr. Brown, the information minister, told Reuters that health specialists planned to go door-to-door through the West Point neighborhood to explain the perils of the outbreak and the need to isolate people showing symptoms such as fever, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

He also said Liberia was contemplating ways to restrict the movement of people. “We realize that we can’t police our way out of this,” he said. “We would prefer community awareness, but we need security backup.”

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At its headquarters in Geneva, the W.H.O. said the number of people who had died in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria had reached 1,229, with 84 new fatalities reported from Aug. 14 to 16, the latest available figures.

The total number of cases was reported as 2,240, an increase of 113 in the same period. Liberia recorded the most abrupt increase in deaths, accounting for 54 of the latest fatalities, compared with 17 in Sierra Leone and 14 in Guinea.

International health experts say the epidemic is probably much worse than the official figures suggest. Local health officials in some countries say they are expecting a sharp increase in the number of cases as they identify patients who have stayed in hiding instead of reporting to public health facilities.

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The W.H.O. also said it was working with the United Nations’ World Food Program to reach one million people in need of food in the worst-hit areas.

“Food has been delivered to hospitalized patients and people under quarantine who are not able to leave their homes to purchase food,” a W.H.O. statement said. “Providing regular food supplies is a potent means of limiting unnecessary movement.”

The statement identified several severely affected areas in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone as places where the emergency food effort was accelerating. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, said it had contained a smaller Ebola outbreak.